The perspective of Research Councils UK
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The perspective of Research Councils UK - Ian Viney, Director of Strategic Evaluation and Impact, Medical Research Council
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The perspective of Research Councils UK
- 1. RCUK Statement on Responsible Metrics 8 February 2018 Ian Viney
- 2. RCUK Statement • Research councils seek the most effective mechanisms to support research • Quantitative evidence supporting research assessment must be robust and transparent • Evaluations must take account of good practice • Inappropriate metrics, such as H-index and impact factors will not be used in review processes • Research councils will highlight good practice and discourage inappropriate metrics • Statement will be kept under review
- 3. RCUK actions • Guidance to applicants, reviewers and recruiters will be amended • Published evaluations will refer to responsible use of quantitative data • Research councils have signed DORA to show support for responsible research assessment • Review statement in due course
- 4. To note • We began discussing the statement last summer as RCUK • After April we will work within UKRI to pursue a policy position acceptable to all 9 councils • Views on metrics differ across funders • Views differ across the research community • Availability of free information about research is increasing rapidly • Chairs of MRC research boards highlighted the need to support early career researchers • We want to encourage discussion and development of consensus on good practice
Editor's Notes
- Research councils primarily use peer review, and don’t usually supplement this with metrics, we may look at evidence from a variety of sources to develop strategy, priorities and to take decisions. We want to highlight that any evidence/data provided to assessors must be robust, accessible etc. Our evaluations will explicitly reference the principles of responsible use of metrics. We’ll discourage use of H index etc., and highlight good practice
- Key phrase in statement is “should not place undue emphasis on the journal in which papers are published, but assess the content of specific papers” Heads of evaluation across all 7 councils were signatories to DORA – published yesterday, so there is commitment to refer to these principles in evaluation work Research councils signed DORA yesterday
- Considering these issues across seven councils within the structure of RCUK took time UKRI is being formed from 9 organisations, and there will need to be some further discussion with the other two partners, HEFCE policy in REF2014 was clear – and the RCUK statement is consistent with this One reason that the discussions took longer than anticipated was that there are some differences of view across disciplines The discussions highlighted that the research community is not of one view on this either, with some Support for early career researchers, who were felt to be disproportionately affected by irresponsible metrics, is a priority